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| Arabia |
| Rape case victim was an adulteress: Saudi Arabia |
| 2007-11-25 |
| RIYADH: A woman in Saudi Arabia sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gangraped has confessed to adultery, the justice ministry said on Saturday as it tried to fend off mounting criticism. Despite being sexually assaulted by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the unidentified 19 year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes. The judge sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative, a taboo in the conservative Muslim kingdom which imposes strict segregation of the sexes. But her story hit international headlines last week when her sentence was increased to six months in jail and 200 lashes after she spoke to the media. The justice ministry said that the woman had owned up to having an extramarital affair with the man in the car. “She admitted to ... exchanging sinful relations,” the statement said, adding the woman was in state of undress with the man in the car before the attack took place. The woman and her alleged lover remained quiet about the attack, which was only reported to the authorities several months later when the woman’s husband received an e-mail from an unidentified source informing him of the affair. “She admitted to what happened and the husband then reported the incident three months after it happened,” the justice ministry said, adding it wanted to correct the “largely incorrect” details published in the media. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #2 Cuz we all know that marital infidelity is just as bad as gang rape. Also note how the men initially received light prison sentences of between one and five years without any lashes. They could have faced the death penalty for this crime except that—I'm guessing—the woman was not an imam's daughter or wife. I can only suppose that the court viewed this gang rape as an extension of the state's law enforcement and merely jailed the offenders for impersonating mutaween. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-25 17:02 |
| #1 Oh, well....that makes everything all right then. Almost an afterthought. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-11-25 16:26 |